Bang & Olufsen recently launched their new flagship audio system BeoSound 5. The design is really different from the other Bang & Olufsen audio systems, and I see the design as an indication of where Bang & Olufsen are going. I like the design and it clearly stands out from other audio systems on the market. In some Danish Medias it has been said, that BeoSound 5’s success is important for the future of the company – BeoSound 5 is mentioned as the company’s savior.

The design
In general I like the design. It’s minimalistic, classic, futuristic and sophisticated – typical Bang & Olufsen values. It’s almost an understatement. So much technology packed into so simple a design. Some critics have asked the obvious question: Why not use a touch screen display? Touch screen displays makes navigation easy, quick and user friendly – typical key selling points for Bang & Olufsen.

At the beginning I was tempted to think the missing touch screen was a handicap for the BeoSound 5. But after thinking deeper about it I have come to the conclusion, that it’s a brilliant idea NOT to use a touch screen. Why? Simply because of the WAF – Wife Acceptance Factor! Imagine how the BeoSound 5 would look like with a touch screen display after only a few minutes of use. Greasy fingers all over the glass surfaces, which is a well-known issue for e.g. BeoCenter 9000 owners. So if you don’t want to wipe your fancy, stylish audio system constantly, I’m sure you will be happy with the dial/button navigation.

The features
Bang & Olufsen has focused strongly on the MOTS feature in their marketing of the BeoSound 5. MOTS is short for More Of The Same and it’s a feature that identifies the music’s genre. You can use MOTS to play random music from the storage and MOTS will only pick music from the same genre. I think this feature is practical when you use BeoSound 5 for background music. It’s also an intelligent way to sort your collection of music. But I don’t think it’s as revolutionary as Bang & Olufsen wants it to be.

The graphical LCD display opens up for new possibilities when it comes to usability. Music stored on the system is shown with pictures of album covers and is easy to browse. The new BeoSound 5 is user friendly. Less than 2 minutes after getting my hands on it for the first time, I was familiar with the user interface.

I miss the possibility of playing a CD without first start up the PC and transfer it to the BeoSound 5 storage, which by the way is the included BeoMaster 5.

The digital dilemma
As with other Bang & Olufsen audio systems, the new BeoSound 5 offers MP3 playback. This represents a dilemma in my opinion. On one side most of us enjoy the benefits of MP3: More music on less harddisk space. On the other side you lose a lot in sound quality when you convert CD’s to MP3. You might not notice the poor sound quality of MP3 when listening to music on your MP3 player or kitchen radio. But you will notice it when playing MP3s on a $5,000 audio system like the BeoSound 5 with matching speakers. The sound quality of Internet radio stations is even worse. But fortunately BeoCenter 5 offers to store your music collection in a loss-free format.

So is it innovative?
Yes and no. Like it or not – if it’s not already, your music collection is going to be bits and bytes on a harddisk. And since it is so, why not choose to have the best possible user interface to manage the collection. BeoSound 5 might be that.

To date the BeoSound 5 is the best implementation of networked music I have seen. There are a lot of solutions on the marked which can do the same when it comes to storing and playing music on a networked harddisk. But this is the least nerdy and geeky solution of them all. Everyone can benefit from networked music with BeoSound 5 – if the price tag doesn’t scare you off.

So in that sense I believe the BeoSound 5 is an innovative product. But technology-wise the BeoSound 5 doesn’t bring anything new to the world. But the big question is: Are the typical (conservative?) Bang & Olufsen customer looking for cutting edge technology? I don’t think so…